Rain sends England through

Irish hopes washed away in Guyana

England have progressed to the Super Eights stage of the ICC World Twenty20 after their sudden-death Group D showdown with Ireland was abandoned due to rain.

For the second time in as many nights, rain was the real winner in a match left fascinatingly poised after England had been restricted to just 120-8.

In pursuit, Ireland were well set on 14-1 after 3.3 overs, but, with the match nine deliveries shy of being classed 'complete', the heavens opened to end proceedings.

England now qualify to the next phase alongside West Indies by virtue of having a better net run-rate than their Irish counterparts, who were heavily beaten in their tournament opener against the host nation.

Suicidal

The outcome was harsh on Ireland who bowled and fielded exceptionally to reduce England to their second lowest ever Twenty20 total.

Wily medium-pace bowler Trent Johnston (1-14) set the tone with a superb opening spell on a pitch that strongly favoured the slower bowlers.

Michael Lumb and Craig Kieswetter found runs hard to come by in the opening exchanges, and both departed inside the six-over powerplay period.

Lumb made 14 before he clipped Kevin O'Brien's first delivery straight to Boyd Rankin at short fine-leg.

And Kieswetter (13) joined him back to the pavilion eight balls later when setting off for a suicidal single, only to be sent back by Kevin Pietersen.

John Mooney's throw was perfectly over the top of the stumps and Niall O'Brien whipped off the bails with the England gloveman agonisingly short of his ground.

England found themselves in deeper trouble when veteran Johnston was rewarded for his accuracy with the wicket of captain Paul Collingwood for a three-ball duck.

After dropping Kieswetter at first slip earlier on, Andre Botha made no mistake this time as Collingwood trudged back in disbelief.

Pietersen scratched around for just nine, however his painful 18-ball stay was brought to an end in identical fashion to the previous night when he slammed a Kevin O'Brien long-hop down the throat of Mooney at deep midwicket.

Robbed

Dublin-born Eoin Morgan and Luke Wright dug deep in the middle part of the innings to at least restore some respectability to an otherwise uninspiring England innings.

Wright clawed his way to 20 off 24 balls only to hole out to William Porterfield in the 17th over.

Morgan struck five of England's 10 boundaries but fell five runs short of his half-century when picking out Gary Wilson on the long-on boundary.

And only a scampered two from Graeme Swann off the final ball of the innings ensured Ireland would be chasing a total over a run-a-ball.

The men in green suffered an early blow to their chase when Paul Stirling pulled Ryan Sidebottom powerfully to the deep midwicket boundary, only to fall for a duck to an outstanding diving catch by Lumb.

Niall O'Brien, playing his 100th international for Ireland, then clubbed Sidebottom for back-to-back fours as Ireland pushed the accelerator beneath the gloomy skies.

However, the inevitable rain failed to relent for any substantial time, thus preventing Ireland a shot at the feasible target.